The context of Pynchon's MDMA saying

[Alex Johnston]

> > but what about the post-experiance depression? everyone i know who has 
>taken
> > it has complained of a terrible feeling the next day or while coming 
>down. it
> > seems to make sense that being that artificially happy would have to be
> > equaled out somehow.
>
>   Part of it can be avoided by drinking (non-alcohols)& sleeping enough
>   afterwards. And it must be real pure MDMA (- not some dirty garage speed 
>which
>   is only sold as "XTC").

...which is what, by all accounts, you get when you buy the stuff in Dublin.

Judging from the difference between the rather sombre unwieldiness (IMHO) of 
the prose style of V and the general elasticity and unbuttonedness of that 
of GR, it looks to me like there's every evidence to suggest that Pynchon 
consumed some mind-altering substances in between (not to mention the 
reports of the likes of Jules Siegel that he did so.)

Personally I don't even go for those, ahem, "jazz cigarettes" (joints) 
anymore, chiefly because the people who make the most money out of their 
sale in Ireland are scumsucking gangsters.

But I'm probably flying by the generally private nature of the drug 
experience, since my own is almost entirely confined to dirty garagey speedy 
things.  (In fact I confess to favouring those evil corporate German 
thanatopsis substances.)  So if I'm straying from the point ignore me.

I watched a very good TV movie last night called All the King's Men - 
nothing to do with Robert Penn Warren, but a story about a WW1 regiment in 
the British Army that was slaughtered by Turks after having been taken 
prisoner.  It struck me that the experience of total war, rather like the 
experience of taking certain drugs, is essentially incommunicable.  At 
least, attempts to render either of them artistically seems to give rise to 
some of the most drastically experimental work.

But maybe not.

Alex

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com